1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an electro-optical device, and electronic equipment using the electro-optical device.
2. Related Art
An electro-optical device, for example, a liquid crystal panel has a configuration in which a pair of an element substrate and an opposite substrate is bonded together with a constant gap, and liquid crystal is sealed in the gap. Pixel electrodes are arranged in a matrix for respective pixels on a surface of the element substrate facing the opposite substrate. On the other hand, a common electrode is provided on a surface of the opposite substrate facing the element substrate, so as to face the overall pixel electrodes.
Among liquid crystal panels, in a liquid crystal panel having a display region of one inch or less diagonally, for example, applied to a light valve of a projector, a step difference occurring due to presence or absence of the pixel electrodes causes disarray in the liquid crystal alignment or optical scattering, thereby reducing a contrast ratio. In order to remove the step difference, a technique has been proposed in which a conductive pattern, which does not contribute to displaying, formed from the same layer as the pixel electrodes is provided in a region outside the display region where the pixel electrodes are arranged at almost the same density as the pixel electrodes, and thus the flatness of the inside and outside of the display region is little different (see JP-A-2006-267937 (refer to FIG. 4)).
However, the conductive pattern is a pattern formed by connecting to each other electrodes having the same size as the pixel electrodes, which are longitudinally and transversely adjacent to each other. For this reason, there is a problem in that since the area of the connection parts is increased, the conductive pattern provided in the region outside the display region does not have the same density as the pixel electrodes, and, as a result, a difference in the flatness occurs.